Mark Zuckerberg’s Russia Problem Is Bigger Than Facebook

Facebook, which initially rejected claims that it enabled the spread of misinformation during the presidential race, is now a central focus of the Justice Department probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Bloomberg reports that special counsel Robert Mueller’s team of prosecutors are investigating how Russia manipulated social media to post propaganda and spread fake-news stories, and are “seeking additional evidence” from companies like Twitter and Facebook. The latest revelation follows news last week that Facebook turned over information to congressional investigators showing that it sold about $100,000 worth of ads—a relatively small amount of ad spend, but one that nevertheless could have reached 70 million Facebook users—to a shady pro-Kremlin Russian propaganda company seeking to target U.S. voters.

It’s a remarkable turn of events for C.E.O. Mark Zuckerberg, who had previously called it “pretty crazy” that Facebook could have had a material impact on the election. In the last several months however, new fears about cyber warfare, including Russia’s sophisticated propaganda machine, have moved from the intelligence community into the mainstream. On Monday, the Daily Beast reported that Russian operatives also sought to organize conservative protests in the U.S., using false identities to create Facebook events designed to inflame partisan divisions over immigration and Islam. According to Bloomberg, multiple agencies including the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the F.B.I. are now racing to prevent future hacking and disinformation operations, including potential threats to the 2018 midterm elections.

Facebook is also rushing to fix what threatens to become a major P.R. issue. Over the past week, Facebook has said it will shut off advertisements for news outlets publishing misinformation; that it will take new precautions when placing ads inside videos; and that it will be more responsive to advertisers in not pairing them with content “that wouldn’t reflect well on their brands.” Its new guidelines for publishers that want to run ads, for instance, demand an “authentic, established presence on Facebook” and proof that “they are who they represent themselves to be, and have had a profile or page on Facebook for at least one month.” Facebook also said that it has now shut down all inauthentic accounts and pages believed to be operated out of Russia. The response comes after Facebook said earlier this year that it would add new services to detect abuse and fake accounts on its platforms, and take down what it calls “false amplifiers”—fake accounts or groups that coordinate online harassment campaigns or spread fake news.

The mounting scrutiny comes at a precarious time for Facebook and other major Silicon Valley companies, which are quickly seeing their political firewall in Washington eroded. For years, the Big Five tech oligopoly (Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, and Alphabet) has managed to stay off Congress’s radar, ensconced in a halo of consumer goodwill that has mostly protected them from the sorts of regulatory threats that have resulted in anti-trust investigations and large fines in Europe. Now, the Era of Good Feelings seems to be coming to an end, just as the federal government is taking a harder look at the ways in which social-media platforms were weaponized in 2016. Suspicion of Facebook is a bipartisan enterprise; Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican, has said that it’s “probably more of a question of when” than if Facebook officials will have to testify. The committee’s top Democrat, Senator Mark Warner,argued this week that “the whole notion of social media and how it is used in political campaigns is the wild wild west.” He added that Facebook’s earlier denials “in the immediate aftermath of our elections” raises questions about what they knew, and when they knew. (Facebook said in a statement that “we have shared our findings with U.S. authorities investigating these issues, and we will continue to work with them as necessary.”)